Memories and Markers
by Mrstrentreznor
Summary: AU: married life can be a handful. Make it whatever wolf you prefer


Littlefurrycannibals hit me with another prompt:

Soooo, I've been thinking about another prompt/challenge and we all KNOW how detrimental that can be. ;D

What i had planned to request will be placed on the back burner in lieu of this one. I want hurt/comfort. *respectfully requested, of course*

**Stipulations:**

Bella and wolf(?). Paul is acceptable but I'd rather not, since it's a low down dirty shame to see him as cutesy and caring. Sex can be a part of it but not the majority. Bella is to be the character hurting and the wolf provides comfort. HE must be in a relationship with her already.

I...think that's it. ;) Musical inspiration (and truly, more the song than the video. WTF were they thinking?)

Songwriters: stone temple pilots

**"Interstate****Love****Song"**

waiting on a Sunday afternoon  
>for what I read between the lines,<br>your lies.  
>feelin' like a hand in rusted shame<br>so do you laugh? or does it cry?  
>reply?<p>

leavin' on a southern train  
>only yesterday you lied,<br>promises of what I seemed to be  
>only watched the time go by,<br>all of these things you said to me.

breathing is the hardest thing  
>to do. with all I've said and<br>all that's dead for you,  
>you lied - good bye<p>

leavin' on a southern train  
>only yesterday you lied<br>promises of what I seemed to be  
>only watched the time go by,<br>all of these things I said to you.

**my thoughts: **

Scott Weiland said the song was about honesty and lack of honesty. For him specifically using heroin and lying about it to his girlfriend. But I don't think werewolves can use heroin. I think it is meant to be Pinocchio in the filmclip, because his nose gets longer when he lies. Yeah WTF were they thinking?

I was watching a program about an English cake shop called chockkywockydoodah and a bride wanted a themed wedding cake based on Miss Haversham. I know right, WTF? As my wedding theme I want the woman who got dumped at the altar and waited twenty years for the groom to come back. And sat around pathetically in the dress. 'All my friends fantasised about the dress or the groom, but for me it was always the cake' she said **in front of the groom**. I'm screaming at the TV 'Noooo don't marry her!'

But in any case, I started to think about weddings and clothes and the memories and the comfort that we sometimes get from them. The requirement that they be in a relationship made me think about having kids and how overwhelming that whole experience can be.

And I had three kids under four.

I couldn't decide which wolf to make it, so you can insert your own.

* * *

><p><strong>Memories and Markers<strong>

She clutched the dress; holding it to her face and inhaling the faded scent. She didn't really get to wear her perfume anymore. Even a pair of earrings; the baby just pulled them out of her ears.

She could never wear the dress again. She wasn't even sure why she was keeping it. And the matching shoes and bag. She had almost screamed at Jules when she was toddling around the house in the shoes. She had found them in the cupboard and she was always such a girlie girl. She loved to wear mummy's shoes. But not _those_ shoes.

Bella couldn't believe that a three and a half year old looked at her with such disdain when she wore a bag and shoes that her small daughter considered didn't match.

She didn't even need to say it anymore; just the look was enough. The way she rolled her eyes.

And here she was clutching a dress in a size 4 that she truly thought she would never fit in ever again. Of course it hadn't helped that she had got pregnant so young. And then that she had had three kids under four. Her waist had thickened and her tits were larger. And now she was pregnant with the fourth. So much for not being able to get pregnant while you were breastfeeding. She had done the test that morning. She hadn't told him yet. Jackson was six months old.

Not that she was sure he would be around to tell. He was away more than he should be. He was getting odd texts and taking phone calls. And when she asked, he would avoid telling her specifically who was calling.

She had never thought it would happen to them. But he seemed emotionally distant.

She was terrified something was wrong. And if he didn't talk to her, they couldn't fix it. She thought he was having an affair.

So here she was holding her wedding gown. It was a beautiful creamy satin. It had a halter top that left the back bare to just above the swell of her ass. She had been naked underneath it because it fitted her so well that a single panty line would have spoiled the look. A slit to the thigh and stay up thigh high cream stockings with lace tops had completed the outfit.

It had fitted her like a glove.

Her favourite photo from that day was his big russet skinned hand over her bare back as they danced together.

Maybe it was the pregnancy that had made her so emotional. But she was genuinely concerned. And because she felt so unattractive, she didn't see how she could compete with another woman.

And another baby on the way? Her house was already a madhouse. A disorganised jumble of half eaten sandwiches, dropped toys, half drunk baby bottles, toys and piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away. No wonder he didn't want to come home.

She tried. God knows she tried. But there were some days when she'd look up and it would be after lunchtime and she couldn't even say where the day had gone and it was half over. Well more than half, if you added in the fact that the boys were up with the sun. She also sometimes couldn't say if she had actually remembered to eat. And she was still in her pyjamas.

And there was no chance of her having dinner ready, because she had forgotten to take the meat out of the freezer, and the prospect of piling them all in the car and trying to drive to the supermarket and then to deal with them all and an independently minded shopping trolley was a worse nightmare than eating whatever she could manufacture from the cans and storage jars in the pantry.

They didn't starve, but they had some pretty creative dinners occasionally. He ate anything of course, and didn't seem to care. Maybe he was getting better food somewhere else.

Jackson and Thomas were just normal little boys. Which meant of course, that they were a complete nightmare. Thank god for whoever had invented the Jolly Jumper. Jackson needed to be hung in it twice a day. He might be six months old, but he could stand and he had been crawling for a month. The nurse at the well baby clinic said she had never seen anything like him before.

He would make that thing fly. She couldn't hang him in a doorway because he bounced into the door jambs, but she had slung a chain across a beam in the living room and then he didn't hit anything. He would bounce himself up and down and she felt secure enough to leave him for a few minutes to use the bathroom or get started on dinner. She just had to wear him out so that he would sleep. He wouldn't sleep otherwise. And even then, he didn't sleep for long periods. Half the time, after she had fed him in the middle of the night, she put him back in the cot with no real memory of having done it. She was sleepwalking. She'd wake up with a jolt; thinking she had lain on him or something. She'd frantically search her bed before checking his cot. Where he would be sleeping soundly with his arms tucked underneath his body and his little nappy covered butt up in the air.

She sniffed the dress again. She had to stop; it was losing the scent.

"Mama, Jackson sleeping. Shhhh," Jules told her.

She frowned. He was hanging in the jumper. He couldn't hurt himself. Oh dear god. He must have fallen asleep in it. She ran, after throwing the dress onto their unmade bed. Really, what was the point of making a bed, when you just got back into it again? And you slept with a guy whose normal body temperature didn't allow pretty quilts or sheets, let alone decorative pillows.

She had completely lost track of the time. Jackson was sound sleep; still hanging securely in the jumper. His little chin tucked down and resting on his chest and his arms hanging limply by his side.

"Fuck me," she swore.

"Mama say bad word," Jules reprimanded.

"Sorry honey." She sighed. "Mama just meant to leave him for a minute," she explained. She felt guilty. How on earth was she going to cope with one more?

Oh lord, where was Thomas? Thomas loved his food. There was only one place he'd be. She rushed into the kitchen to find him sitting in front of the pantry with the sugar container and a spoon. He had eaten so much sugar, his gums were bleeding. He smiled at her with those bleeding gums. She smiled back. She would be lucky if he would sleep in a week's time.

She groaned. She was officially a bad mother. She had gone into her room to get dressed and had pulled the dress out again. And then she had lost track of the time.

First things first. She scooped Thomas off the floor, hearing the sugar crunch under her feet like sand from the beach. She got him a drink of water and his favourite stuffed toy and parked him and Jules on their little fold out foam chairs in front of a Disney movie. She let Thomas choose; it was his turn. Jules was not happy when he chose the Jungle Book. She didn't like the part where the elephants trumpeted. It was too loud for her.

Bella bargained with her that she could turn the television off at that part. The remote controls were kept hidden up high on a bookshelf but she knew where the on/off switch was.

And then she couldn't believe that she had to actually negotiate with a three year old.

She unhooked Jackson from the jumper and carefully carried him to his cot. She unstrapped the harness and held her breath as she removed it. It actually crossed her mind to leave him strapped in it, but she thought that was a bit dangerous. He might get tangled in the cord.

His nappy felt full but didn't smell. So it was only wee. Changing it would wake him up and she made the decision to leave him in it. He'd be okay. He needed the sleep more.

And then she swept the kitchen floor and mopped. She checked on the others and they were happily pointing things out to each other and watching their movie.

Then she really needed a cup of tea. She actually took five minutes to put her feet up and stare out the window into the forest that bordered their house as it bordered almost every house on the reservation. It might have been longer than five minutes.

And then she remembered the dress. She hadn't put it away again.

She walked down to their bedroom. When she saw the dress she actually screamed. A wordless noise of shock and horror.

Jules backed away against the wall of their bedroom and dropped the marker she had in her hand. She held her hands behind her back.

"What have you done?" Bella screamed at her daughter.

Her scream woke Jackson and he cried. Thomas came down to see what all the noise was about. He stood in the doorway and popped his first three fingers in his mouth. He only did that when he was nervous. His big dark eyes looked worried.

Jules had not moved. She did not take her eyes from her mother as she held the dress to her face and she cried. She rocked back and forth and she keened as if something had died.

Maybe it had.

Nobody moved.

The front door banged.

Nobody shifted an inch.

Nobody spoke.

She wanted to stop crying but something inside her was broken. She sobbed and wailed.

He took one look in the door as he went to Jackson first. She could hear him talking to him as he rescued him from his wooden prison.

He appeared in the doorway with Jackson on his hip. The baby was hiccupping the way he did when he had been crying too long. He put his big hand on top of Thomas's head. Thomas put an arm around his leg and hugged him.

Jules looked at him, but was too frightened to run past her mother to get to him.

"Bella?" he asked.

She held the dress out to him with its new decoration of scribbles in pink marker. "L-look… w-what… s-she… d-did," she sobbed.

He blinked. He crouched down and scooped up Thomas with his free arm and strode across the room to Jules. He stood in front of her and looked down at her from his enormous height.

Her lip wobbled. "Wanna make pretty," she said.

"What do you say?"

"Sorry mama."

"Bella?" he asked.

"I'm not three," she screeched at him.

He raised an eyebrow. He looked down at Jules again and jigged his head towards the door. She ran.

She couldn't stop crying. She heard him settle the elder two back in front of their movie. She heard him talking to Jackson as he changed the baby's nappy. He strode back into the room with Jackson lying along his arm. His feet hung down either side and his head lay in his father's palm. He loved being carried like that. She could do it for about three weeks and then he got too heavy for her.

She was hiccupping herself now. He wordlessly passed her a damp cloth. She wiped her face with it. And then held it in her hand. She tried not to look at him; she thought she might start crying again if she did.

He stood there with his feet slightly apart and he rocked the baby. When he had quieted enough he plonked him down onto the mattress.

"What if he rolls off?" she blustered.

"I'll catch him before hits the floor."

He folded up his long legs and he sat cross legged on the floor in front of her. He looked at the dress and he looked at her. And he waited.

She waited too. She waited for **his** explanation.

The baby rolled over and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He sat there and watched them both. He put more effort into moving around than talking, so he didn't babble like the others did at this age. Bella shifted closer to him. Typical that he wouldn't go back to sleep.

Silence.

She didn't know where to start. How about with: 'honey, are you cheating on me? And by the way I'm pregnant'. No. Maybe not.

He watched her. She twisted the damp cloth in her hands and stared at the floor. He had always watched her, and rarely spoke. It was one of the things she had loved about him. Now his silences made her nuts. When she didn't know what was happening, she made up stuff to fill the gaps. Stuff she prayed was wrong.

He cleared his throat.

Fuck him, he could break the silence. She waited.

"Why does Thomas smell like sugar?"

A small win for her; he spoke first. "He ate a pound of it."

"Ah."

Silence.

She risked a glance at him. He was looking at the dress with a wistful expression on his face. She sighed. She couldn't compete with another woman if he had one.

"You can leave if you want," she stated.

He frowned at her.

"I know I'm… n-not the same." She gestured at the dress.

"It's just a dress," he said.

"No. No, it's **not** just a dress." And then despite her aim to stay quiet it just all babbled out. "It's the encapsulation of everything I was that day… beautiful and slim… and so hopeful for our future together …and I didn't reek of baby vomit … and I wasn't in my pyjamas… and there was dinner on the table… and…" She stopped and emitted a strangled sob. "And if you want to go off with your other woman… you just go… we'll be all right…"

"**What?"**

She sniffed. It was one of those awful sounding liquid sniffs. So unattractive.

"What other woman?"

She looked at him. He looked horrified. "There…" Tiny voice. "T-there isn't another woman?"

He just shook his head.

"So where have you been? You're never here," she almost screeched at him. Oh way to go girl.

"I got another job."

"A second job?"

"I wanted to… buy you stuff…" He looked perplexed. "You loved this dress. I thought you wanted more stuff like that."

"It's not the dress itself… it's the memories," she tried to explain.

"So that's why you get it out all the time?"

"I don't need stuff," she wailed. "I need you! This dress is the day I got you."

He just looked at her. "And she drew on it."

"Yeah. She wrecked it. It's destroyed. Not that I could have fitted in it anyway." She hated how whiny she sounded.

Silence.

"Mama," said Jackson.

She looked at him. He had his arms held up the way he did when he wanted to be picked up. She picked him up; he was irresistible.

"Silly baby," she told him. "Your first word is supposed to be 'dada'."

"Mama," he insisted.

She hugged him in to her neck and she felt him grab her hair in one of his fat little fists. She sniffed again.

Long arms stretched around them both and she was lifted and hauled into his lap. The dress came too. She snuggled in against his chest.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know you were worried about that."

She just nodded. She felt like crying again. She shifted the baby to sit in her lap and he patted her hand. It made her chuckle.

He laughed too and tucked his face down to kiss her. He froze. Then he pushed his nose into her neck and sniffed.

"You're going to have to ditch that job now anyway," she pointed out. She knew he had smelt what that morning's test had confirmed.

"I guess so," he agreed.

"At least I can't get pregnant again, for another eight months or so." She fingered the dress material.

"You did look amazing that day," he stated.

"You too."

"And we fucked all night."

"And look where that got us."

"Mama?" asked the baby. She knew it was a question because it went up at the end.

"I don't regret you guys," she told him. "It's just all the other stuff… and I seem to have less hours in the day than I used to. And no time to myself." She brushed her hand over his still fine baby hair. "Mama loves you," she told him.

"Mama." It was a statement now.

"You gonna wear that word out?" she asked him.

"MAMA!" he shouted.

"Fine… you win."

His father chuckled and kissed her forehead. "What do you need?" he asked her.

"A sleep and a bath … and you. Not necessarily in that order."

"I'll call Charlie. Ask if he and Sue can baby sit tonight. Do you still have some milk expressed in the freezer or do you think Jackson can stay?"

She looked at him. "He can stay. He never gets us to himself and he will probably get less in the future now, too. He'll have to be weaned for a start."

"Okay." He scooped her and the baby up, rose effortlessly to his feet and laid them down in the bed. "Why don't you two have a nap," he suggested. "While I arrange the sitters."

"I love you," she blurted out. "I'm sorry I doubted you; it's just…" She waved a hand ineffectually. "…stuff," she finished.

He leaned down and kissed her. "I love you too." He kissed the baby too before leaving to make the arrangements.

She lay there with Jackson's face tucked in to her chest and the dress crushed under them both.

She brushed the material with her fingertips. It was just a dress. Why did she think it mattered so much? The little guy in her arms and the other one busily growing inside her… they were her new memories. And the others. She didn't need a dress. It was a symbol of the day they were legally joined together, but he was hers _before_ that day.

And he was still hers now.

"Mama," Jackson muttered.

"Right here, little guy," she told him.

She closed her eyes. She must have slept for a while. She shifted a little when she felt the bed move as he climbed on. He lay down facing her and brushed her hair with one hand; their baby safely cocooned between them.

FF_2154210_ - 12/11/2011 05:09:00 PM


End file.
